Posted!

Join the Conversation

Comments

Welcome to our new and improved comments, which are for subscribers only.
This is a test to see whether we can improve the experience for you.
You do not need a Facebook profile to participate.

You will need to register before adding a comment.
Typed comments will be lost if you are not logged in.

Please be polite.
It's OK to disagree with someone's ideas, but personal attacks, insults, threats, hate speech, advocating violence and other violations can result in a ban.
If you see comments in violation of our community guidelines, please report them.

President Donald Trump’s nomination of Scott Pruitt to lead the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency should terrify everyone concerned for our environment and the health of our children.

The EPA was established in 1970 by Republican President Richard Nixon to protect human health and the environment. The EPA’s task is to enforce laws passed by Congress, and one of the first and most important of all laws protecting our environment was the Clean Air Act of 1970, co-sponsored by Tennessee Sen. Howard H. Baker Jr.

Thirty-five years afterward, Baker reflected that “so long as the Clean Air Act, its principles and its goals survive, I will have a lasting legacy.” Pruitt and Trump will rob Baker of that legacy and expose our environment and our children to ever increasing amounts of toxic pollutants.

Pruitt opposes reasonable constraints on polluters. From his positions as state senator and attorney general of Oklahoma, he has fought against the very mandate of the EPA to protect citizens. In fact, he opposes the mere existence of EPA, and he has led numerous lawsuits against the agency. For example, he has fought against limits on ozone, mercury and cross-state air pollution where the science is clear.

The EPA is charged with reducing environmental risks to human health based on the best available science. But Pruitt not only is uninformed on sound science methodology and findings, but opposed to any conclusions that oppose the economic interests of his true enablers – the fossil fuel industry. This is not just a claim, as he actually set up a legal defense fund for such industries to send contributions and, then filed suit as attorney general of Oklahoma on their behalf, on multiple occasions, to oppose EPA protection for our citizens. The rules he opposed have saved billions of dollars in healthcare costs for Tennesseans alone, and hundreds of premature deaths.

Pruitt’s appointment will have detrimental consequences for the health of all Americans, including Tennesseans, and our state’s agricultural and tourism industries, recreational and commercial fishing, native plants and animals (including rare, threatened and endangered ones), and combating the documented effects of climate change that have exacerbated floods, fires and storms. One needs to look no farther than Gatlinburg to realize the risks we face and the risks we should be preparing to confront in Tennessee.

Besides setting reasonable guidelines to protect our environment and limit damage to our health and welfare, the EPA also supports education and research. In Tennessee, UT alone receives about $1 million. But, more importantly, EPA actually responds to environmental emergencies and catastrophes. For example, the coal ash tragedy in Kingston a few years ago found TVA completely unprepared for an appropriate and rapid response to one of the worse such incidents in our country. It was EPA that came in and responded, doing what TVA, and its high-salaried executives, were incapable of doing.

The EPA has a long history of being run by capable administrators garnering support from both political parties. Baker knew that the protection of our environment must be above politics. The leader of the EPA must be committed to its mission and have respect for rational decisions based on the best available information and recommendations from scientists who are devoting their careers to protecting our health and resources.

Republican presidents of the past have appointed such people: Nixon appointed William Ruckelshaus, George H.W. Bush appointed William Riley, and George W. Bush appointed Christie Todd.

Both of Tennessee’s senators, Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker, are intelligent and informed on these issues and know what is at stake. It is our duty as responsible citizens to encourage both of our senators to stand up for what they know is right, to show political backbone and oppose the nomination of Pruitt on behalf of all of us. Pruitt’s history is one of demagoguery and lies to protect his special interests, not our environment. We must speak up for the air we breathe; our mountains, rivers, and forests; and the legacy we want to leave to future generations. Even in our lifetimes our children may cry out – how could you knowingly allow such evils to occur and not give us a fighting chance to remedy a compromised planet?

Gordon M. Burghardt is an Alumni Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of Tennessee. Gary F. McCracken is a Professor and former Department Head of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at UT.